Yes To Hartford Baseball Stadium Project

LeylandAlliance and Centerplan

A group led by New York-based LeylandAlliance and Middletown-based Centerplan has proposed building a ballpark, more than 210,000 square feet of municipal office space, more than 600 residential units, and retail space that features a supermarket.

A group led by New York-based LeylandAlliance and Middletown-based Centerplan has proposed building a ballpark, more than 210,000 square feet of municipal office space, more than 600 residential units, and retail space that features a supermarket. (LeylandAlliance and Centerplan)

Editorial: Hartford should green-light the baseball neighborhood

There is considerable apprehension about the proposed Downtown North development in Hartford, and the concern is not misplaced. The baseball-oriented project is a big risk for an impoverished city with high taxes.

Nonetheless, Hartford needs a big inning, and this could start the rally. The Downtown North project can expand the size of downtown as well as its residential and commercial base, provide first-rate entertainment in the summer months and make the city more attractive to young workers. These benefits, plus hundreds of jobs, make the risk worth taking. The city council should approve the project and move it ahead.

If the project was simply a minor league baseball stadium, as it was first presented, we would have found it difficult to support. Sports stadiums by themselves are not good generators of economic development, many studies indicate.

Neighborhood Plans

But as this project evolved, it became a neighborhood, with most of the funding coming from private sources. The development will have offices, more than 600 residential units, public spaces, retailers including a major grocery store, and the popular Hooker Brewery.

It is the scale of the project that gives it a chance to work — it can be, as economist Fred Carstensen of the Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis observed, a whole greater than the sum of its parts.

Not every city, especially a state capital, has 15 undeveloped acres adjacent to its downtown. Hartford does, due to the truly unfortunate decision in the 1960s to run I-84 through the heart of the city. The highway isolated and degraded land in the near North End, and the city has been trying without success to develop this wasteland of scruffy surface parking lots ever since.

People have proposed individual buildings. But other than a campus idea that never materialized, no one has tried to develop the whole thing at once, to bring in places for people to live, work, shop and recreate.

As Blue Back Square in West Hartford was an expansion of an existing downtown, Downtown North can be an expansion of the existing downtown Hartford.

Like Fenway Or Wrigley

A stadium in the middle of nowhere — think of Rentschler Field in East Harford — doesn't generate much economic activity. A stadium in a neighborhood — Fenway Park in Boston or Wrigley Field in Chicago — can be both a fun place and a catalyst for investment.

Mr. Carstensen and his group estimate that if the $350 million project is built as planned, it will produce as many as 2,000 jobs during the construction phase and about 1,100 direct and indirect permanent jobs, nearly half for Hartford residents. While those are not huge job numbers, they are more than welcome in a city with the highest rate of unemployment in the state.

The project also would generate $30 million to $40 million a year in added income tax revenue between 2018 and 2030, according to the CCEA estimate.

Many people have questioned whether the area is safe. The move of the police station to High Street a couple of years ago — a block away from the Downtown North area — lessens security concerns. Also, if residents of the North End and downtown have something invested in the Downtown North area — if they work there, shop at the grocery store and take their children to the baseball games — they will help make it safe.

There is still work to do. Contracts have to be drafted that protect the city's interests. Residents need to be trained for the jobs that come available. Some commentators, including Courant columnist Dan Haar, believe the city's projections failed to account for such costs as building inspection and environmental remediation. The council should review the numbers.

Finally, the city should coordinate the effort with the Capital Region Development Authority, which operates the XL Center and is building hundreds of units of housing in downtown. CRDA has considerable expertise that could be most helpful as Downtown North moves ahead.